Ties That Bind
by chronicxxinsanity
Summary: Life can be complicated, and the life of a shinobi can be dangerous. Good thing the three Uzumaki children have each others backs, even if they don't always get along. One shots centered around Naruto, Hinata, their friends and children.
1. An Uzumaki Mission

**Ties That Bind**

An Uzumaki Mission

This was not the first recovery mission Mito Uzumaki had been on. And being the sensory type that he was, it wasn't likely to be his last.

This was not, Mito thought with determination, the last time he would be sent after his sisters team when something inevitably went wrong. Because this was Inabi he was thinking about, and as long as Inabi Uzumaki was breathing she was making trouble.

Mito was forced to stand second in the single-file line – the captain in the front and his two teammate bringing up the rear – and even though he ached to push on faster, the man before him insisted on a slower, steady pace. Just because he knew this was so that they wouldn't miss anything important didn't make it any easier, and it didn't stop his legs from itching to go quicker. He had to force himself to slow down, if only to make sure that he didn't miss any details as they flew through the trees.

They had been sent out five and a half days ago, and according to the briefing given by the Hokage, it wasn't certain whether the team was alive or not. Mito had carefully examined his father's face as he spoke of the possibility of his own child's death. While his eyes had fallen to the folder in his hand, the set of his jaw told the ever-observant Mito that his father hadn't chosen to entertain that thought for more than a second.

The team had left in a rush to where the team had last been seen, and were scavenging the area for signs of where they may be. This wasn't the farthest away from home that Mito had ever been, but it was for Inabi. The land around him looked more foreign than Mito had ever seen, and while the trees around them were full of long, thin and sinewy branches, the leaves had long since fallen to the ground and the air felt cold and heavy.

This had to be a terrifying place for Inabi to be lost in, Mito thought sadly after he miscalculated a branch in front of him and it snapped, leaving him to reflexively grab another branch to keep from falling. This was nothing like home.

And so, taking a page from his fathers book, Mito kept his mind focused solely on the mission at hand. His lanky form rushed through the trees after his captain and his determined blue eyes scanned the ground around them for any sign of a struggle.

They had only been traveling for another hour or so before his captain abruptly stopped high up in the trees and gave Mito and his teammate a signal to stop as well. Now that he was no longer right behind the first in line, Mito could make out the scene before him. It felt like he had just stepped right out of the tree and was falling to the ground.

Four bodies lay strewn around the makeshift clearing, and he saw an arm and leg sticking out from under a fallen tree. Mito quickly took in all the details of the fallen ninja, looking for the small body or dirty blonde hair of his little sister. One of the ninja bearing a Mist headband had blonde hair, but it was grown out long, and the woman's figure was obviously far more developed than Inabi's wiry and cat-like frame.

Seven bodies total – four leaf and three Mist ninja – and Inabi was nowhere to be found.

"Hey," one of Mito's teammates called out, motioning with his nose to the forest and scratching the famous red Inuzuka fang on his cheek. "A leaf ninja went this way."

"Which one?" Mito was by the Inuzuka's side in a flash, searching the forest for any signs that enemy ninja had followed them. He took an experimental whiff of the air, but it smelt like forest, blood, and sweat – there was no distinction between which person the blood or sweat belonged to.

"Berries, green tea leaves, and milk. Smells like you," his teammate commented lightly in that odd, short way he did. Had it been anyone but his teammate – who he had personally seen track a single person for miles with only smell to go on – he wouldn't have believed him. But this was an Inuzuka, and one that had an exceptional nose to boot.

But he couldn't rush off without an order, and looked quickly over to his captain who was inspecting one of the Leaf jounin that had been purposefully propped up against a tree. Mito briefly recognized the man as Inabi's team captain.

"Go," the captain said quickly, his eyes never leaving the man before him. Mito nodded to his captain and then thankfully to his teammate. The Inuzuka brushed it off and went to stand beside the fourth ninja on their team, but Mito didn't care to wait around any longer. He jumped high up into the trees and headed north.

He scanned the bushes underneath him as he ran, looking for a head of short blonde hair or a bright red scarf. The path he was following had to have been made by an injured ninja, and Mito was caught between fear and joy. He didn't have to be an Inuzuka to smell the blood that seemed to follow her: she was alive, but obviously injured. The thick, lower branches underneath him had been pushed aside hastily, but then again, Inabi was never one to cover her tracks with care and precision.

Mito's entire body stopped when he heard a thud. It was coming from straight ahead, and he stealthily moved through the trees until he spotted her sprawled out on the ground. He moved in closer but approached like he would a startled animal.

Inabi growled out a curse that pulled the edges of Mito's mouth into a smile. There was no mistaking the loud-mouth before him. She pushed herself onto her knees and then stood on wobbly legs, clutching a tattered leather bag with at least two blood-smeared hand prints on them.

Inabi looked so much older than she was right then, with her eyes puffy and her skin flecked with red and cuts. She had even pulled her hair up for the mission, but half of it had fallen out of it's hold and stood in a chaotic mess around her head. It reminded Mito of when she was much younger and had given herself a haircut that turned into a ratty mess, but her face had lost the baby fat and her expression wasn't one of someone who was safe and at home.

She was on edge, and even though it looked like she had gone through hell she was still carefully scanning the area before her. He could tell when she had sensed he was there; her muscle stiffened even though she otherwise appeared calm and she slowly came to a stop.

That bag, the entire reason that the rest of her team was dead and why they were still in danger just by having it in their possession, was held tightly against her chest.

Mito dropped to the ground soundlessly before her, taking in her appearance now that he could see her face clearly. But the hardened expression of a shinobi in battle didn't fade or change. She was looking at him as she would an enemy.

"'Nabi?" Mito asked, opting for his childish nickname of her. In a flash, fears that he had been trying to damper flared up. His baby sister had been on a mission that was far above her abilities. Physically, he could see that she was standing before him, but mentally he had no idea where she was.

Apparently he had taken a step closer, because her unusually light blue eyes narrowed and she took one back to keep the distance between them.

"We're here to help, Inabi. Dad sent my team and I out five days ago to take you home." As much as Mito wanted to grab her by the shoulders and force her to recognize that he was there to help, the analytical part of his mind knew that doing that would only make things worse.

"I am going home," she said defiantly, her voice hoarse and small, and that damned bag was still held against her chest protectively.

"We can take you there faster," Mito said, but when Inabi's expression didn't relax he realized she still saw this as the battlefield, and he was just another ninja trying to take what she had promised to protect. "You do know who I am, don't you?"

Mito slowly lifted the sleeve of his left arm and held it out for her to see the bright red tattoo swirled on his inner forearm. Inabi's eyes flickered to it briefly but were fixed on his face seconds later. It didn't seem to have any meaning to her, which made it that much harder to mask his worry. Did she not know that she had that very same tattoo on her own arm?

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously again. "Mito."

"You don't believe me." He lowered the sleeve of his shirt and hid his disappointment. It wasn't a question; he knew she didn't believe that he was actually standing before him.

"No, I don't," she answered sharply, glancing back north as if to calculate how far she could get if she tried to outrun him.

Not far, Mito concluded, eyes scanning over the deeper cuts on her bare arms and deciding that getting antibacterial medicine on them sooner rather than later would stop anymore infection from setting in.

"Inabi, come on. I need to get those fixed before we can head back." Mito took a step forward, but Inabi hastily took several back. She wasn't walking right, that much he could tell from the way her left foot was angled inward and her weight was centered on her right leg. That was another thing he had come to expect from her; she was only getting better and better at masking pain with sheer determination if it meant keeping up her tough front.

"We don't have time to stand out here and argue about this," Mito said, his voice softening as he went through all the possible scenarios and which one would play out in Inabi's favor. "You need to get to a hospital, and the more you have that with you the more danger you're in." He pointed to the bag and Inabi visibly flinched. But her shoulders didn't slump in defeat and her suspicious gaze never wavered from his face. She wasn't going to back down from this.

"Promise you won't be mad," Mito said, sensing the glimmer of recognition in Inabi's face for a split second before it was forced away. He had said those exact words to her on only a few occasions, and only when absolutely necessary.

Mito's hands came up to form several hand seals, and even though Inabi took several steps back to get away she wasn't quick enough. Once the genjutsu had set in Inabi's grasp on the bag loosened and it fell to the ground at her feet. Her eyes slowly fluttered closed and the hardened expression relaxed. Mito leaped forward, no longer worried about frightening her now that she was in a genjutsu that mimicked a peaceful sleep. He caught her before her knees even began to buckle and quickly threw the leather bag over his shoulder.

Five days was going to be a long time to keep Inabi under, especially if her subconscious caught onto him and began to fight back. But the weight of Inabi's health, the leather bag, and the entire mission seemed to shift from his little sister's shoulders to his own once her entire body went limp.

Mito leaped into the trees and raced back to the original makeshift clearing they had walked in on, the scroll securely in the bag over his shoulder and his sister held carefully in his arms.

. . .

Author's Note:

I feel like it's a tradition for the ninja of Konoha to go on a mission and have it turn out to be way over their heads. I'm starting with Inabi and Mito because they were the first characters that I created for this, and I honestly find Inabi to be the most fun to write about. You'll see in the next chapter, when her character comes out a little more (because in this she's obviously out of it).

Anyone else want to hear the story of Inabi giving herself a haircut? How about the swirls on their inner arms? They're coming up!


	2. Swirls

**Ties That Bind**

Swirls

It had all started when Hizaki Uzumaki discovered something called lipstick. After a long day of attempting to evade the unusually high stack of paperwork, Naruto had come home to a chaotic kitchen. But that wasn't what was unusual.

Inabi was sitting in her chair, and despite the way she was innocently drawing what was either a kitty or an owl, he was 100% sure that the mess of spaghetti on the floor was due to her.

"Hi dad," Naruto's eldest son greeted him, not bothering to look up from where he was dissecting his green beans. Mito was what made the chaos a little less hectic, as he was merely sitting at the kitchen table and cutting the green beans into smaller pieces and peeling off the outer layers with a kunai that still looked too big to fit in his tiny hand. Naruto watched for a moment as the boy cut open a green bean as a medic would cut open a patient, with perfect concentration and dexterity.

Naruto examined the mess before him. Spaghetti had been smeared across the floor and part of the table, and a bucket of soapy water stood by the back door. It was only half-full, though, because the other half looked like it had been splashed across the wall and dripped down to form a large puddle on one side of the room.

Suddenly in a stream of red, Hizaki came running through the kitchen followed by a flustered Hinata. The two came skidding to a halt only when the short boy slipped on the spaghetti mess and landed on his bare butt. The two watched carefully as the boy's pale purple eyes slowly began to fill with tears, and in the blink of an eye he seemed to deem himself unharmed and the tears disappeared. Naruto had been amused when Hizaki entered his 'no-clothes' phase, where clothes seemed to personally offend the boy. While he still found it a little funny, his wife was obviously a little tired of it.

Hinata attempted to wrestle the stick of lipstick out of the naked five-year-old's death grip, and that was when Naruto noticed that bright red swirls had taken the place of Hizaki's clothes. The boy seemed to be a mess of red, from his red hair to the red lipstick to the red spaghetti sauce that was smeared all across his backside.

Only after Hinata had finally snatched the stick of lipstick and the boy was hauled to his feet was Naruto's presence noticed.

"Can you clean him up, please?" Hinata asked breathlessly, holding Hizaki's little hand out to Naruto. The two tagged out so that Hinata could either confiscate the kunai from Mito, clean the spaghetti off the floor, or stop Inabi from continuing her drawing onto the table.

Naruto pulled Hizaki into the hallway and towards the bathroom to get the noodles out of his hair, deciding that he may as well have just been given a B-ranked mission when the boy's arm, slippery with soapy water and red sauce, slid from Naruto's grip. In a giggle that reminded Naruto of himself when he had evaded punishment, Hizaki disappeared into the living room.

. . .

It wasn't long before Hizaki's fashion statement caught on, and when Inabi could coordinate enough to break into her mother's now-well-guarded makeup drawer, swirls began appearing on her as well.

Inabi was decidedly more subtle than Hizaki had been. Instead of taking off all her clothes and bearing the symbol that resembled the mark on Naruto's jacket sleeve proudly, she kept her clothes on – though still bore the symbol just as proudly.

Naruto was unsure of whether to scold the children for destroying several sticks of lipstick or not. After watching Inabi carefully apply a large swirl to the bottom of her foot – because the rest of her body seemed to be full of them already – he opted to let them have their fun.

After a long talk, Naruto and Hinata decided to draw the line on foot-drawings after Naruto came home from work to discover bright red footprints throughout the entire house.

. . .

Now that the three Uzumaki children were older, Naruto waited and watched for those red swirls to slowly disappear. But as the years past, Inabi and Hizaki only became more adamant about their swirls, even when they were limited to one swirl on their inner left arms.

It had become a proud symbol, though of what, Naruto struggled to find out.

Mito, ever the neat-freak, flat out refused to draw anything on himself, and looked at the bright red lipstick in his little sisters hand with something akin to disgust. Inabi was never one to back down, and soon Hizaki joined in, badgering Mito mercilessly to draw _just one_ swirl on his inner left arm so he could join the pact.

Naruto was floored when Mito had calmly walked into the kitchen for breakfast, with a swirl identical to Inabi and Hizaki's drawn on his inner left arm.

. . .

Naruto shouldn't have expected it to stop there, because of course, it didn't. These were _his_ children, he was talking about.

After Mito's flawless performance in the chuunin exams, Naruto noticed a small change in the drawing on the boy's arm. It was no longer chalky and smeared after he came home from practice or a mission, and it was when Mito was handing over a mission scroll that he realized what his son had done.

It seemed to be a small badge of honor that bonded the three siblings together. After each chuunin exam, the swirl of red lipstick on each of their inner left arms was drawn once more in ink.


	3. TailsInabi Has Three of Them

**Ties That Bind**

Tails, Inabi Has Three of Them

Naruto had seen Getsu Inuzuka grow from a runny-nosed kid making trouble at the academy to a ninja capable of accepting missions and protecting their village. He had personally watched the Chuunin exams, and witnessed the loud-mouthed kid – who obviously took after his father, Kiba, in more ways than just looks – cockily take down his enemy and walk out of the arena on his own two feet.

He could have seen the kid save the entire world, and it wouldn't have made him feel any better watching Getsu come up to his front door and leave with his daughter in hand.

. . .

"Don't you dare," Hinata warned, her once squeaky voice morphing into something akin to a bear protecting it's cub. Naruto had become accustomed to reading her tones over the years, and this one coupled with the narrowed eyes screamed suspicion. She was onto him already, and he hadn't even said a word.

"Don't I dare what?" Naruto asked innocently. He turned his chair away from the door, as if he hadn't just watched his daughter skip down the stairs and leave with Getsu. He was plotting, that was for sure, but even though Hinata knew that much it didn't mean she knew what he was planning.

"Ruin her date. Inabi's been looking forward to this for months."

Naruto scoffed at that. "She has not."

"Of course she has."

He turned to his wife with wide eyes, scandalized. "Since when?"

"Since she started liking him," Hinata said, and even though she spoke in an exasperated tone she ruffled Naruto's hair affectionately. "Just don't ruin it." She sighed, having obviously given up on stopping Naruto from grabbing his jacket and rushing out the door, leaving the kitchen chair to precariously tip back before falling.

. . .

"You're sure she won't kill us?" Mito asked, following his little brother through the back alleys of Konoha. Hizaki made a soft snorting sound and glanced back at Mito to quirk an eyebrow at him.

"She can't kill us if she doesn't know we're here." Hizaki laughed, that laugh that meant he was up to something and made small alarms go off in Mito's conscious, letting him know that what they were doing was _definitely_ not okay...just in case he had any doubts.

The two Uzumaki brothers scaled the side of a particularly tall building. The moment their feet hit the roof, Hizaki lead the way to the edge that looked over a busy civilian street. Mito joined him and the two crouched low to the ground so they wouldn't be seen. It took him mere seconds to spot the head of messy blonde hair – Inabi – and the taller boy beside him with red fang marks on his cheeks – Getsu.

"There they are," Hizaki said, his pale purple eyes flickering between them and their destination, a tea shop that looked to be far too cutesy for Inabi's taste.

"We can get a better view through the front window from that building," Mito whispered, motioning over to the next building over. It was significantly shorter than the one they were on, but it would give them a better view of the tea shop.

The boys silently leaped over the gap and hurried over to the edge of the building.

"Over there." Mito motioned to a large vent that stood at least four feet tall, and it would give them a bit of cover in case Inabi decided to look their way. The two boys quickly ran over and stealthily snuck around the vent, coming to sit so that the two could see the tea shop.

Both boys froze when a loud ruffle sounded beside him.

A bag was offered to Mito. Muscles still tense, he turned to see his father grinning at him, looking as if he had made himself comfortable against the vent some time ago by the empty ramen bowl and several bags of chips littered around him.

"It's going to be a long day, boys. Chips?"

. . .

Author's Note:

This is taken from the personal experience of being a little sister, growing up with a protective brother.

Does anybody else think that Naruto would be an overly protective father? I get a sense of that from him in the series, and it just seems to be a quality that fits well with him. Don't forget to review and let me know what you think of this little family I've made for these characters.


	4. Like Father, Like Son

**Ties That Bind**

Like Father, Like Son

It's not long before Mito – who has now lost most of his baby fat and let his blonde, shaggy hair grow out – decides to take his mothers advice and hold the door open for a girl who happened to be walking behind him.

The act didn't make all that much sense to him, since the girl was in his year at the academy and perfectly capable of opening the door herself, but he did it. He did it, and he immediately regretted it.

. . .

No more than a week had past since Naruto had caught wind of his son's new-found popularity with the girls at the academy. He normally wasn't one to listen to gossip, since a lot of it has little to no truth to it, depending on when the Yamanaka's got their hands on it. But when Mito came racing through the back door after school, slightly panting and checking to make sure that he wasn't being followed, Naruto knew that this particular piece of gossip had at least a little piece of truth behind it.

Even after it had become a regular occurrence for Mito to sneak over the fence of their backyard in order to lose the gang of girls that tried to follow him home, it didn't cease to amuse his father. Naruto would often glance out the window at exactly 3:10, even if it meant having to stay back to make up for the amount of paperwork that he was putting off. But it was definitely worth it.

Naruto's skilled eyes tracked down the lone figure walking down the main street of Konoha as he past the Hokage tower. The shock of Naruto-esque blonde hair was impossible to miss, as was the group of at least seven giggling girls who seemed to keep at least ten feet behind Mito at all times.

The boy looked back at the group with a scowl, obviously irritated.

Naruto chuckled and sat back in his chair, watching as the figures which were barely larger than ants from high up in his office. Caught up in watching the scene before him, he only heard the light footsteps and felt the familiar chakra of his former teammate when she was turning the doorknob.

"Hey, Naruto. I've got some reports from the hospital and Shizune said you weren't too busy to look over them by tomorrow," Sakura sang out over a large pile of folders in her arms. She dropped them off in a heap on his desk and straightened her skirt, only now becoming aware that Naruto's chair was turned away from her so that he could get a better look of the street below.

Curiously, Sakura leaped over the desk and joined Naruto beside the window as he finally muttered a greeting. Mito took another glance back at the girls before putting the speed he inherited from his grandfather to use. In the blink of an eye, the blond-haired boy was gone and the girls were left noisily scavenging the street he was last spotted on.

Naruto finally glanced up at his former teammate with a mischievous grin the likes of which Konoha hadn't seen since his years in the academy.

"Like father like son."

Sakura let out a snort and forcibly turned Naruto's chair back towards his desk. "Whatever you say, Naruto. Just get back to going over these reports."

. . .

_Author's Note:_

_- No big author's note or comments this time, I just wanted to remind you to let me know what you think. : )_


	5. Foxes Are Awesome

**Ties That Bind**

Foxes

Naruto wasn't sure when Mito understood what the Kyuubi was, or when he realized that his father was more than just his dad and the Hokage. He and Hinata had never sat him down and explained it, or even made a concrete decision about when to have that talk with him. At some point the boy just understood.

Hizaki was a different case entirely. Within his first week attending the academy he had heard the word 'Jinchuriki', and badgered his parents mercilessly until Naruto was forced to sit the curious boy down and explain what the Kyuubi was. Hizaki was fascinated by the subject, and it wasn't until a few years later that his questions – ranging from 'how?' to 'why?' to 'where is the Kyuubi?' - finally stopped.

Now that Inabi was entering the academy and socializing with children outside of her two older brothers, Naruto's imagination ran rampant. It was only a matter of time before she heard the words Kyuubi or Jinchuriki and came running home with questions of her own, since she was not one to hold back when she wanted information.

It was nearly a month after his spunky daughter began attending the academy when there was a knock at his office door. Shizune peaked her head in and gave Naruto a nervous smile, tipping him off to the fact that something was off before she even opened her mouth.

"Hokage-sama, Inabi is being sent over from the academy and Iruka this." Shizune stepped over to his desk and waved a small piece of paper in the air.

"You can send her in when she gets here," Naruto said, grabbing the note and waiting for Shizune to shut the door behind her before opening the note.

Footsteps approached the door and paused just as Naruto finished reading the note and set it aside. Ever so slowly, the doorknob turned and a messy head of blonde hair hesitantly peaked into his office.

"You can sit over here, Inabi," Naruto said, pulling a chair over from the wall so that she would be sitting across from him. The small girl slowly stepped into the room and shut the door, her head hanging as she walked over and climbed into the chair. Naruto waited for a moment, but Inabi sat with her eyes glued to her lap and her fingers fiddling with a tear in her shorts.

"I'm in trouble, aren't I?" Inabi asked, unusually light blue eyes darting up to gauge her father's reaction. Naruto chuckled, and her shoulders instantly relaxed.

"Iruka-sensei is giving you a week of detention for beating up a classmate-" Inabi's lips perched to the side. "-and he wants me to have a talk with you." Her head dipped back to stare at the tear in her shorts. The normally talkative and curious girl sat with her eyes downcast and feet swinging as if she was waiting for a scolding.

"Do you know what the Kyuubi is?" Naruto asked after a moment of contemplation. With Mito, he didn't even have to bring the subject up, and Hizaki was more than happy to start the conversation by himself. This would be the first time that he had to breech the topic with one of his children.

"Not really," Inabi muttered.

"Iruka-sensei says that you got in a fight at school because... Ryuu was talking about it," Naruto said, looking to the card to make sure the name was right.

She made a reluctant response in the back of her throat to acknowledge this.

"The Kyuubi is one of the tailed-demons." At this, Inabi finally looked up at Naruto with the curiosity that he was accustomed to from her. "And a Jinchuriki is a person who's had a tailed-demon sealed inside of them. Just after I was born, the nine-tailed fox-demon was sealed inside of me," Naruto added with a smile, pointing to himself.

"You have a fox inside you?" Inabi's haphazardly self-cut hair swayed when she tilted her head to the side.

"Well, it takes the shape of a fox. It's not an actual fox."

The girl across the desk from Naruto didn't seem to take that into consideration.

"Foxes are awesome!" Inabi declared happily.

Naruto let out a sigh and sat back in his chair, deciding that the small, wiry girl before him wasn't old enough to understand more than 'daddy is a fox' for the moment.

. . .

Author's Note:

To 'Guest', who didn't leave their review signed: if you send me some sort of contact info I can send you a response.

To everyone: I'm aware that Mito is a girl's name. Do I care? No. It's enough of the name Minato to be a little 'tip of the hat' to him without doing the 'naming the son after the father/grandfather' bit which I'm not a huge fan of. I'm also aware that it's the name of a cannon character. Again, do I care? I would if it was a character that is more well-known (for instance, Kurenai, Izumo...Minato) but it's not. It wasn't until I started looking through fan sites that I found the character, but I hadn't heard of it from the anime before. Therefore...I don't care. : ) If it bothers you then...that's too bad. I like it.


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